"We're hoping people will look at this and say, 'We need to support the event, just like we did before.'"

Some people will be ticked off at the decision, but it’s necessary to sustain Race Weekend going forward. Run Ottawa, the not-for-profit organization in charge of the event, will instead give 50 per cent discounts on registration to next year’s Race Weekend (May 28-29) for those who have already paid for 2020, plus a gift package, along with holding a virtual race it hopes will give competitors tastes of the real thing.

“The reality is we’re a small, dedicated full-time team and we work on this 12 months a year,” said Ian Fraser, executive director of Run Ottawa. “We plan on paying for things way in advance of the starting line ever being a reality. We paused registration two weeks, so all of a sudden our revenue stream stopped while we evaluated the situation. We’ve committed to so much capital outlay at this point that it puts us in a really challenging position. A primary concern was to create a way forward for value for our participants and to truly take their needs to heart, but also to make sure we survived.

“Runners will still need events to run in when this is all over. We’re hoping people will look at this and say, ‘We need to support the event, just like we did before.’”

Ian Fraser was named executive director of Run Ottawa and race director for Tamarack Ottawa Race Weekend on Sept. 3, 2019.Run Ottawa

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a string of cancellations/postponements in the running world. On Monday, Run Ottawa announced the six-race May festival has been called off because of uncertainty created by the novel coronavirus and social distancing measures. The Boston and London Marathons had already been postponed from April until September and October.

While details of Ottawa’s virtual run event will be announced shortly, nearly 18,000 people who were already registered for race weekend will receive their kits, including medals, T-shirts and some surprises from event partners. Registration will re-open shortly to allow others to enroll in the virtual competition.

As for the virtual event, where Run Ottawa will partner with Sportstats to create a shareable virtual finish line as well as a comprehensive set of results, Fraser explained: “Whatever event you signed up for, you pick the route of your choosing. It can be any route, but we’re not encouraging people to use the race routes we traditionally use (for race weekend), for safety reasons. Preferably it’s something close to home. Go out, run your event. Whatever device you use to log your regular runs — a wrist watch, some kind of connected device or a GPS — we have an amazing results platform where that can be uploaded or manually uploaded. In the same way you look at your results on race weekend, you can still look at them. There will be a virtual finish line where you can have a photo of yourself crossing the virtual line.

“You’ll get your medal, T-shirt and some swag from our partners. We think it’s a fun thing to do. As runners, we all need to connect to that in whatever way we possibly can. If we can’t offer our events on May 23rd and 24th, we owe it to the community to be able to offer some way to activate that. What a way to clear your head, what a great way to get out and get some fresh air. It’s more important now than ever.

“I know it’s difficult for some people to grasp the idea of what a virtual event is. Certainly in the running community, that concept has taken incredible hold over the past few weeks. We’re pushing forward with this event not as something that’s a poor substitute, but something we really think is valuable to our participants. Families are going to be in a different place emotionally and physically when get to the spring of 2021, so, having this be a celebration, I think nothing could be better than that.”

Participants who were using this year’s event to fundraise are encouraged to continue to promote their favourite causes through the virtual race and to use the hashtag #ScotiaCharityChallenge until Aug. 31.

“One of the pillars of going forward with the virtual event is to be able to keep pushing our Scotiabank Charity Challenge forward,” Fraser said. “We raise an enormous amount of money. Having the ability to be able to still activate that is really important for our community.”

Runners leave the start line of the Scotiabank Ottawa Marathon on Sunday, May 26, 2019.Patrick Doyle /
Postmedia

Race Weekend attracted more than 30,000 participants a year ago, so pushing it off the 2020 calendar was an extremely difficult decision.

“Of course we’re concerned about what people’s perception is and how that impacts 2021 and beyond,” Fraser said. “But the reality is we’ve got to be able to make it to 2021. A full refund to participants is just not something we’re capable of doing.”

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